


break on through (to the other side)

by QueenOfCarrotFlowers



Series: Carrot's Random Fics [14]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, F/M, R.I.P.D AU, for additional warnings check notes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-20
Updated: 2020-08-20
Packaged: 2021-03-06 04:34:26
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,108
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25947409
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenOfCarrotFlowers/pseuds/QueenOfCarrotFlowers
Summary: Police officer Ben Solo is shot by his partner, and then his dayreallygets weird.
Relationships: Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Series: Carrot's Random Fics [14]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1801357
Comments: 8
Kudos: 23
Collections: Let's Go to the Movies - Reylo Readers & Writers Prompt Exchange





	break on through (to the other side)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chaoticbouquetsolo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticbouquetsolo/gifts).



> This fic is for chaoticbouquetsolo, written for their prompt **Reylo but in the R.I.P.D Universe**.
> 
> I chose not to use archive warnings, but if you're not familiar with the movie you should know that 1) Ben Solo dies at the beginning, but he immediately turns up in a kind of afterlife; 2) Han Solo is dead at the start of the story (it's mentioned as backstory); and 3) there is a brief moment of messy violence which is played as comedy.
> 
> This fic is a very small bit of the whole of the movie, and although it mostly follows it, it also plays with it a bit too. chaoticbouquetsolo, I don't know what you were expecting but I hope this will do!

Ben Solo’s morning had been unusually chaotic. 

He’d awakened earlier than usual, done a little bit of gardening before his mom woke up. He’d moved back home after his dad died - a sudden heart attack, not anything related to his work in the Hanna City Police Department. Ever following in the footsteps of the great Han Solo, Ben was able to transfer from the Coruscant PD to Hanna City without too much trouble. He didn’t have much else going on with his life aside from work and his mother, so when she suggested it he figured, why not? 

It was nice, getting to know her again, slowly working together to rebuild trust and heal old wounds. So he was feeling pretty bad about what he’d gotten into. As he buried the bag under her begonias, he considered how disappointed his mom would be if she knew. She’d done her best with him, she really had, but he’d always been a bit of a rule breaker. He’d just never been quite this deep before. Stealing a pile of gold from the evidence lockers was a bit much, even for him. But now it was buried where nobody would look for it - at least not until his partner came through with a fence they could use to sell it all. Once that was done Ben could stick the money away in an account, and if he had a little bit more every month to spend, he could always tell his mom he’d gotten that raise he’d been hoping for.

When he came in she was cooking breakfast, a cup of coffee waiting for him at his usual seat at the table. She didn’t ask him why he was up so early, or what he was doing out in the yard, and he appreciated that. She already asked enough questions, about his work, about his partner, and he didn’t need her poking around more than she already was -- for her own sake. He walked out the door just after 7am as his partner, Armitage Hux, pulled up in the unmarked car provided to them by the Hanna City Police Department. 

Hux greeted him in the usual way, with a smile that looked more like a sneer, and a cup of takeout coffee that Ben was happy to add on top of the Folgers his mom gave him with breakfast. They bantered, talked a little bit about their crime ( _just a little crime,_ Hux reminded him. _A victimless crime_ ), as more and more vehicles joined them in their drive across the city. They were headed towards what they expected to be a bust of a major meth lab, and they were both excited to see it done.

And it was all just fine until, finding the two of them alone, Hux unloaded a gun into Ben (he apologized first, which Ben supposed was nice), and then, after falling three stories and landing on concrete, Ben was subsequently sucked up into a massive, swirling vortex in the sky. It was very dark, and then there was a light, a fast approaching light. It was terrifying, and Ben screamed—just before being jerked sideways, away from the light, into another swirling passage where colors bent, sound was distorted, and light streamed around him. And now, here he is, standing on his own two feet in the middle of a room.

The room is massive, some kind of library, an infinite space filled with boxes, cubbies, and soaring stacks of papers. Corridors lead out in many directions; he stares down one of them but can’t see the end of it. Where he’s standing now feels like an office that’s also a library, except for the mellow strains of Judy Garland singing _Somewhere Over the Rainbow_ that washes over everything from some unseen source.

There’s a table just a few steps in front of him, more like a desk really, and a woman sits on the other side of it. She appears undisturbed by his presence, and she watches him as she lifts her cup of coffee to her lips and takes a loud sip. Her expression is serious, but he still thinks she’s pretty. Young, early 20s maybe. She has hazel eyes and her chestnut hair pulled back into some kind of bun. There’s a wood and metal nameplate set in front of her, but it’s turned face down so he can’t see the name on it. 

Ben has no idea what’s going on. The woman sets down her cup, looks him up and down. She does not seem impressed by what she sees.

“Tough day.” 

Her voice is pleasant. She has a slight English accent, which only serves to make her more attractive in Ben’s eyes. How come he’s only ever attracted to women in weird situations? Like that time he hit on the redhead in line at the DMV, or the first week he was in Hanna City when he got pulled over for speeding by that cute officer who turned out to be married to his Captain? Yeah. This was a little bit like that. Only worse, because... 

“It’s normal to be a little tongue tied at first,” she continues. “Just take your time, ease into it…”

“Ease into what?” Ben crosses his arms. He’s pretty sure he knows what she means by “it”, but if he can just pretend he doesn’t, maybe this will all turn out to be a bad dream. He blinks at her, guileless.

The woman is unamused. “Come on, genius. I know you can get there.”

“No,” he insists, shaking his head. “Not possible.”

“I know, I know,” she says, and he’s pretty sure she’s mocking him. “It’s like, _this can’t happen to me. I had so much left to give. What about my dog? Someone has to fix the roof_.” Now he knows she’s mocking him, but he still can’t bring himself to admit what he knows is true.

“This is not real. This is a joke.”

She nods. “It’s hilarious, right?”

“You’re trying to tell me I’m _dead?_ ”

She sighs and rolls her eyes. “Jesus, every time. It’s like a broken record.”

Ben shakes his head, annoyed at himself, but then he remembers the last thing that happened before getting sucked up into the sky and his annoyance shifts to anger.

“Hux.”

“Tragic. But pretty classic.” She has the nerve to smile. She’s _amused_. “Ben. Ben Solo, right? You did kind of have it coming. Let’s be honest. Being a dirty cop is one of the higher shot-in-the-face-by-your-crooked-partner-percentage jobs.”

“Hey!” Ben leans over the desk and points his finger in her face. “That’s not who I am.”

She gestures behind him, and he turns around. The spinning tunnel he passed through to arrive here is still there, rotating and pulsing, part of the structure of the massive room.

“Really? That was the tunnel to the afterlife I just pulled you out of. How’d it feel for you as you headed toward judgement? Comfortable? Felt like you were bound for glory? Or were you a little worried?”

Ben looks at his hands.

“Thought so. Are you ready to talk yet, Ben Solo?”

“Yes, Ma’am.”

“Rey,” she says. “You can call me Rey.”

“Rey,” he repeats as he pulls out the chair. He can’t help but notice that her cheeks take on a bit of a pink tinge as he sits down across the desk from her, that the tone of her voice softens, just a little. 

“You’re valuable, Ben. You have skills. So you get a choice. You can go through the tunnel, to the place you’ve earned in eternity. Or… you join our police force. The W.B.W.P.D.”

“W.B.W.P.D.? What does that mean?” 

“The World Between Worlds Police Department,” she says.

“Okay.”

“Because this is the World Between Worlds.”

“I get it. It’s cute!”

She glares at him. Any softness in her tone is gone. “You make fun of the name again, I _will_ kick your ass.” He believes it.

She takes out a gun and handcuffs that gleam with an unworldly light, and lays them on the desk between them.

“Simply put, we find dead people who are hiding out, and we toss them back into that tunnel where they belong. Can’t have the dead in our world - it messes up the balance. We need boots on the ground. Say yes, we’ll send you back to work for us for 100 years.”

“You’ll send me back to Hanna City.”

She gives him a smile that implies she knows exactly what he’s thinking. “It’s not going to go the way you think, Ben.”

He nods, as though he agrees with her. “Got it.”

Ben reaches for the gun, but Rey catches his wrist before he can touch it. The look on her face is deadly serious.

“I know what you're thinking. You got rooked; you want revenge. You want your old life back. You want to give your mom one last hug.”

Ben stares at her, trying not to give up anything.

“You asked me to join, I said yes.”

She scoffs. “You really don’t think I can read you, huh? You think you can just talk to me like I’m some green-eyed giggling honey at Maz’s Bar and Grille?”

She taps a file which has appeared in front of her. It has “BEN SOLO” stamped on the front, and it is voluminous.

“I know everything I need to know about you. You made a life out of getting around rules you don’t like, but you won’t get around ours.” She leans back in her chair. The corners of her lips tug up; she still seems amused, but he doesn’t understand why she would find this funny. In another moment she’s serious again. “This is an opportunity, Ben. Don’t squander it. I know for a fact you could use a little karma boost come Judgement day. You scratch our back for a hundred years, we’ll scratch yours for the rest of time. Any other questions?”

“Yeah. What’s with “Somewhere Over the Rainbow”?” The song is still playing but the version has switched over to the Hawaiian cover version. Ben almost likes this one better than the original.

“No idea. It’s always playing. Seems to relax people.”

Ben looks at her, then at the gun, still lying on the desk. He takes it, and she doesn’t stop him this time.

“Okay, I’m in. What’s next?”

Rey smiles. “This’ll tickle a bit.” She leans across the desk and puts her hand on Ben’s chest, which makes him blush at first but he’s immediately overwhelmed by extreme pain, what he imagines it would feel like to be poked with a cattle prod. He pulls his shirt open to find that a badge has been branded onto his chest: BEN SOLO - W.B.W.P.D. When he looks up, Rey is already out of her chair and headed down one of the narrow corridors formed by the shelves. 

“Do you have one of these?” He asks, hopping up out of the chair to follow her. “Maybe you can show me?”

He can almost hear her eyes rolling; she just beckons him to follow. He turns back one last time to peer up into the tunnel from whence he came. He can see shapes in there, shadows of people being led to who knows where; some of them don’t look quite right. He shivers and follows Rey down the corridor. 

Once past the corridor of shelves they enter a new corridor, this one lined with steel doors.

“This is holding,” Rey says. “Lots of paperwork before we send them off.” The mention of paperwork makes her sound grumpy, which surprises him a bit - she seems like a by-the-book hardass, and he’s glad to find she has a soft spot. After all, he hates paperwork too.

“Send who off?”

“Dead people, of course. Deados.”

As she continues down the hallway, which seems to be never ending, Ben looks back over his shoulder. He can no longer see where they came in, it’s just a long and steady parade of doors.

“One hundred and fifty thousand people die every day. Unfortunately, the system wasn’t designed to handle that kind of volume. Every once in a while, people squeeze out of the tunnel. Bad people who don’t want to go to Judgement, because they know where they’re headed.” As they walk past more and more doors, Ben begins to hear soft knocking from behind some of them. It’s eerie, and he hurries to walk closer to Rey.

Finally they reach the end of the hallway, and walk through an enormous set of double-doors into the biggest bullpen Ben has ever seen. Like the room they were in before, the office-library, this bullpen is massive. It seems to extend infinitely, in every direction.

Rey gestures around them. “Welcome, Ben Solo, to W.B.W.P.D Hanna City.”

Ben looks around, turns to see a suspect being led in by an officer, but the suspect is like nothing Ben has seen before. It’s humanoid, but grotesque, at least eight feet tall, with many mouths on its chin and neck, and bulging eyes, much larger than a normal human’s. It looks more monster than human. 

“Wow.”

Rey follows his gaze. “Ah, yeah. Don’t worry. Your partner will explain everything. Not sure who that is yet, but we’ll figure it out.”

Suddenly the suspect flips out, pulls away from the officer and overturns a nearby desk. It roars, and moves like it’s going to make a break… where to, Ben isn’t sure, since he can’t see any obvious exit. But the suspect runs, and the room erupts into an uproar.

“Goddammit. Give me that.” Rey rips the gun out of his hand and before he realizes what’s happening she aims and fires at the monstrous suspect, who explodes into a gooey mess. 

The room is suddenly completely silent. The officer who had been leading the suspect earlier, now on the ground and splattered with residue, shakes his head.

“Come on,” he starts, but she interrupts him.

“ _You_ come on, Finn. Just because I’m the only one willing to lethal-up—”

“Rey,” he says, scrambling back up to his feet, trying not to slip on the goo.

“No, _you_ Rey!” She replies angrily, shoving the gun back into Ben’s hands, but he holds it gingerly. Now that he knows what it can do he’s no longer so sure he wants it. He wonders what happened to the calm hard-ass he was talking to in the back. He thinks he likes her better like this; a little dangerous, a little wild.

“Rey!” A voice calls out from behind Ben. It’s authoritative; a man’s voice, a familiar voice. A voice that makes Ben freeze, makes him feel like a little boy. Rey’s demeanor changes immediately as heavy footsteps come closer and closer.

“Hey, boss,” she says, turning back towards Ben and looking put out, like she’s ready to be dressed down. A little bit petulant. It’s cute. She speaks to the person over Ben’s shoulder. “He was going for the door.” 

Someone steps around from behind Ben, and stops to stand next to him. Ben examines the gun in his hands carefully, tries to keep himself from shaking. What if he’s wrong?

Rey keeps talking. “I’ll plant a gun on him if it makes you feel better—”

“We’ll discuss it during the hearing.”

Rey’s face, which had been mostly stoic and impassive up to this point, dissolves into a childish scowl. “ _This_ is the one you’re going to take all the way? This one? Really?” 

The person standing beside Ben shifts from foot to foot but doesn’t say anything. 

“We both know what this is about,” Rey grouches. 

“Not the time,” the man says, and Ben can hear him shift again, turn towards him, but he can’t bring himself to look up. He sighs. “Rey, I thought I told you to let me know when he arrived. I wanted to meet him back there myself.”

“You did tell me that, Han,” she answers, stepping closer to make the conversation private. A cleaning crew has arrived, and Finn has gone off somewhere to change his uniform. It looks like things are getting back to normal around them. “But he showed up early, and I didn’t want to confuse him too much.”

“Well,” the man says. “Are you confused?”

Ben finally turns his head, looks into the face of the man standing next to him. They’re about the same height, although the man is older, his hair grey, his face wrinkled, his eyes kind. Ben stares at him, speechless. The man’s smile grows wider, warmer, like he’s getting ready to laugh.

“Hello, Ben,” he says. “You’re looking good.”

Ben finally finds his voice. “Dad?”

The older man does laugh at that. It’s a joyful sound, and one Ben has missed. “I’ve missed you, kid,” he says, and pats Ben on the shoulder. “Hoped I’d see you again but I didn’t want it to be quite so soon. How’s your mom?”

Ben tackles him in an embrace, being careful to keep his finger off the trigger of the gun, and Rey hoots with laughter as Han pats Ben’s back. Eventually they let go, and Rey looks away while both men take a moment to wipe tears off their faces.

“Mom’s good,” Ben finally answers. “Or she was, this morning.”

“She’s strong, Ben,” Han says, and he almost sounds like there isn’t a lifetime of regret behind his words. “She’ll be fine.”

“Sure,” Ben says. “So, you’re a cop after death, too?”

“They gave me the same deal they’re giving you. One hundred years to help clean up the deados, with a little help come Judgement day. Only here, I’m the boss.”

“I thought Rey was the boss,” Ben says. Both men look at her, and she grins. This woman clearly has no shame. Ben likes that.

“She likes to give that impression, but no. She’s actually your new partner.”

Ben’s heart skips a beat, but Rey gasps. “A partner? Han, you know I don’t work well with others.”

“Not a choice, Rey. Now come on, you two. I’ve got a case for you, and I think you’re really gonna like it.”

He heads off down one of the neverending corridors, and Rey and Ben fall into step behind him. She’s still frowning, but Ben winks at her when he catches her glancing at him out of the corner of her eye. Her cheeks turn distinctly pinker, and Ben thinks death isn’t so bad after all.

**Author's Note:**

> The title is from [the song of the same name by the Doors](https://youtu.be/NFeUko-lQHg).


End file.
